Cloud Computing: Features

Those who continue to deem the Cloud "rogue IT" fail to see the forest for the trees, according to Bernard Golden. Institutions dead set in their ways should prepare to see smaller, more innovative firms embrace the cloud and race past them.

Coupa, a 2006 startup that helps more than 200 customer companies manage purchasing and procurement, doesn't own any IT infrastructure - it is run completely from the Amazon Web Service Cloud.

The proliferation of datacentres around the world has made the Cloud not only accessible, but also affordable in the process. However, the issue of data sovereignty, the location of where the data is stored, has been an inhibitor.

The message to Cisco’s partners was simple: In it to win it.

Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference is less than one month away, and speculation is high about whether Apple will announce new iCloud features, refreshed MacBook Pros, overhauled versions of iOS and OS X and maybe even a new smartphone during the conference.

There is a paradox in the technology that IT employs and deploys. As it becomes easier to use and simpler to manage, it is actually increasing in complexity. And there is a paradox within this paradox concerning how IT relates to the business. More on that in a bit.

No single cloud service can do everything. Some shine when it comes to streaming a cloud music collection from the Web, but stink at syncing desktop folders. Other cloud services are great for sharing photos, but useless for reviewing a document's revision history.

IT as we know it is over.

In IT, failure is not an option. Not surprisingly, organizations have made it a high priority to develop and implement reliable business continuity plans to ensure that IT services are always available to internal users and outside customers.

Given that Cloud computing is still emerging, it shouldn't come as a surprise that opinions vary widely on the best way to architect the storage. In fact, it seems likely that there is no such panacea - different types of private Cloud almost always require different approaches.

It seems like all phones and all tablets do all things for all people these days. Every single smartphone and touch tablet has become just about everything anyone could ever want in a mobile device.

Cloud technology is emerging as a viable option for companies that want to cut costs, increase agility or augment their own IT resources without building out new infrastructure - or all of the above. But deciding which type of service is the best fit for your specific needs and ensuring the new cloud offerings play nice with your existing application mix is a challenge, to say the least.

I had the privilege of chairing the infrastructure track at last week's Cloud Connect conference. Three of the presentations were particularly interesting, offering a good perspective on just how dramatic an effect cloud computing is having on IT. Summed up, the capability and agility of cloud computing is forcing an extremely rapid evolution.

While there are sure to be a lot of new networking and IT companies that emerge in 2012, these nine stood out for their potential to deliver game-changing innovations in a wide array of fields, including Cloud computing, enterprise search, and mobile application development. (These are in addition to seven hot Cloud companies and seven storage companies to watch that we highlighted last year.)

It's widely accepted in the technology industry that Apple is working on a smart, internet-connected TV device. But what do we really know about the 'iTV' so far? There's been a lot of speculation flying around about an Apple TV set for several years, and many times it has been reported that Apple has been on the brink of an announcement - only for our hopes to be dashed at the last minute.

It used to be that when I said "Cloud services," people's eyes would glaze over and in minutes they'd be gently snoring. That was then. This is now. While CIOs and CTOs still debate about what role the Cloud will have in business, personal Cloud services have been slowly easing their way into almost everyone's computing plans.

For many of us, the Cloud has changed the way we work and play. Thanks to well-known services like Gmail, Dropbox, Facebook and Instapaper, practically our whole lives - photos, documents, contacts and more - are online. So isn't it time to take control?

Email/calendar systems are the most important communications channels for enterprises, and deliver a reliable, cost-effective and secure mechanism for collaboration. An email system is typically used for a decade before suppliers are changed: organisations should apply significant due diligence in selecting an email system, given the criticality of email to their overall health.

There's no denying it: practically every business is moving to the cloud or at least thinking about it. But with a number of options available to them, many are still experimenting with which works best.

The two primary forms of public cloud computing, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), are both growing dramatically in popularity. Over the last few years, the primary focus of the IaaS providers has been on offering the basic compute and storage resources required to run applications.